Your Season Ticket Just Got Smarter

You can purchase Weekly, Monthly, custom duration and Annual Smart Season Tickets online for travel from stations on the Norwich, Cambridge and Southend Victoria lines to London Liverpool Street.

We’ve introduced a new Smart feature to our App for Android users. If your Android device supports NFC (Near Field Communication) the new feature will allow you to load tickets onto a Greater Anglia Smartcard direct from our app or when buying online, if you have selected Smart Card fulfilment when purchasing your ticket. It will also let you check what tickets you have on your Smart Card. The feature is available to all Android users of the Greater Anglia app.

Paper season tickets will only be issued on certain routes under certain circumstances. You can use your existing paper ticket until you renew or, if it has a month to run, swap it online or at Liverpool Street, Colchester or Cambridge.

Once you receive your card, log into your online account and purchase or renew your Season Ticket. Please leave at least two hours between purchasing your Season Ticket and collecting it at the station. You can also purchase your season ticket and have it loaded onto your card at any of the stations listed here.

Smart Cards can be used for Weekly, Monthly and Annual Season Tickets.

The benefits of Smart Card

Using a Smart Card for your Season Ticket is much quicker. You no longer need to queue at a ticket office to purchase your Season Ticket, simply buy it online at your convenience and then present your card at a gate or ticket machine to load your Season Ticket product to your Smart Card.

If you travel through a station with automatic ticket gates, you'll no longer need to feed your ticket through the gate. Simply touch your Smart Card on the reader.

Smart Cards are plastic and are much tougher than paper tickets. This means they're more durable so you're less likely to need a replacement.

Greater Anglia’s Smart Card is an electronic, reusable card that is being introduced across our network. It is part of the Department for Transport‘ South East Flexible Ticketing’ scheme, which aims to enable interoperable smart ticketing on all of the train operators across the South East. You can already use your Smart Card on Transport for London services, and eventually you will be able to use it for a variety of train companies and ticket types.

You’ve told us how frustrating it can be when your paper ticket stops working at the gate, or when the ink fades; we know it’s annoying to have to queue up in the station to get a replacement ticket. You’ve also told us that you’d love to be able to buy your Season Ticket online and be able to pick it up at a time that’s convenient for you.

Smart Cards are far more durable than paper tickets – they won’t stop working halfway through the validity of the ticket for some unknown reason, and if you accidentally put them through the wash, they’ll still work. Plus, you’ll be able to manage your account online – no more waiting in the queue at the ticket office, just buy your ticket online and tap at a station to load it onto your Smart Card.

Not quite. Whilst Oyster is similar in that it is a plastic card that can also hold Season Tickets, unlike Oyster the Greater Anglia Smart Card will not have a ‘Pay As You Go (PAYG)’ feature. Weekly, Monthly, Custom Duration and Annual Season Tickets are available on Smart Cards. You will, however, be able to include a London Travelcard with your Season Ticket on your Smart Card, for travel within London zones, just like you can for a paper Season Ticket.

The Greater Anglia Smart Card is available to anyone over 16 years of age, who wants to travel using a Weekly, Monthly, Custom Duration (e.g. three months) or Annual Season Ticket on the Norwich, Southend and Cambridge to London routes (for example, Bishop’s Stortford to Cambridge, or Rayleigh to London). We are also offering Travelcard add-ons, so you can buy a ticket to any London zonal combination (for example, Colchester to London Z3-6). Customers with Annual Season Tickets on their Smart Card are entitled to Gold Card benefits, just like a paper ticket.

If you're a current Season Ticket holder and you have more than one month's validity on your ticket, you can apply for a Smart Card via our 'Smart Swap' service at selected stations.

You can collect your Season Ticket two hours after you have purchased it from your chosen station.

Your Season Ticket will be loaded onto your Smart Card when you touch into the yellow gateline reader, or tickets can be collected at the ticket machine at stations with no gates.

You can collect your Season Ticket in advance using the ticket machine.

When purchasing your Season Ticket online you will need to state which station you want to collect your Season Ticket at.

Smart Card season tickets must be collected at your chosen collection station before you travel. Smart Card season tickets for travel to and from Inner London stations must be loaded at the ticket gates or the validators before travel.

Our staff will be able to assist in the first instance if your card stops working. If you continue to have problems, please contact our Smart Card Support Team on 0345 600 7245 (option 9) who will be able to assist and rectify the fault.

Refunds will be calculated in the same way as they are for paper tickets. If the Smart Card holds residual value, and you do not need to travel anymore, you can contact the Smart Card Support team on 0345 600 7245 (option 9) who will be able to process this for you.

No. Smart Cards are fully reusable. Once a ticket expires, simply go online, purchase a new ticket, and load this in the same way as you did initially. The card will never ‘fill up’, as expired tickets will be automatically deleted.

Yes, you will be able to board/alight (‘break your journey’) at any station along the route that your ticket is valid on. At some locations with ticket gates, due to ongoing software upgrades, your Smart Card may need to be validated manually by the gateline staff.

Yes, if you purchase an Annual Season Ticket on a Smart Card, you will automatically be issued with a Gold Record Card. You will receive this by post 5-7 days after purchasing your ticket. This Gold Record Card can be used to obtain all your usual Gold Card benefits.